Kim Jong Il

Here’s a hard truth that’s certifiable by any rudimentary review of modern Korean history: The real news about Korea catches almost everyone by surprise.

Who, for instance, would have predicted the outbreak of the Korean War nearly seven decades ago? Who knew, in the depths of South Korea’s economic suffering after that titanic tragedy, that the South would burst into bloom as a major industrial power?

And who would have thought, in the darkest moments of military dictatorship under Park Chung-hee and then Chun Doo-hwan, that Korea would emerge as a democracy complete with national, provincial and local elections?

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